Rats & Ravens: Reno's Story
by Black Nation
Summary: The night Reno became a Turk.


DISCLAIMER: I do not own FVII characters and no profit is made from their use.

**RATS and RAVENS**

His skin smelled like sweet cooking oil and delicious pasta, and he was mumbling in a foreign tongue as he fucked me hard enough to get his few Gil's worth. A chef is a desirable client. Clean, because the job requires it, and with money, because in Midgar a good chef is a wealthy man. He huffs and puffs as he finishes up between my legs and then he withdraws and disappears. I sit up to gather the few notes he neatly tucked underneath the pillow and draw in the fumes of a cheap cigarette my brother has already lit up for me. He is a vigilant pimp, and he watches me intently.

"You're damn good at this, Red," Sylvester, who I call Small Sly although he's my older brother, says counting the money. "You might be the first escort in this shithole to get rich spreading your legs!"

"I ain't a fucking escort. I'm a whore." I smoke quietly and stare at my reflection in the cracked wall mirror. Creamy skin, a few gang tattoos, a dozen scars, muscular arms and ribs showing through. My face is young and pretty still, but there's no innocence in my lazy green eyes anymore and something about my whole look is just a tad bit trashy. I run my hand through my crazy red hair, all the way down the long pony tail. It's brown, really, but I dyed it wild red to stand out in the crowd. Sixteen is a hard age, they say. Assholes with money their whores young and sixteen is already pushing it. It's nasty business, I know, but I don't have Sly's muscles or my old man's thieving fingers, so this is the only occupation that pays halfway decent.

"You gonna share the wealth, yo?" I ask Sly suspiciously. He hasn't handed any money back to me.

"Get your nasty ass in the shower," he scuffs, like I asked him something ridiculous. "Ma's pregnant again, it's just enough to get the landlord off our back. For a while." My eyes flicker in instant anger.

"Stupid bitch!" I slam my fist into the crooked bedside lamp. A shady motel like this won't miss it. "And WHY should I feed this new bastard! And all the other ones! Why can't my sisters sell their cunts on the Wall Market to pay for their own dinner?"

He slaps me so hard my vision blurs. I swallow metallic-tasting spit and my lip is swelling as I breathe in rage. My brother grabs my naked groin and slams me into the wall. He isn't worried about causing bruising, he's really pissed now and his huge arms are constricting around my body like two fat pythons.

"Because, Reno, we are the oldest kids in the family and we have to contribute, you dumb bastard! Down here that's what you do to survive. You think I like collecting drug debts from Candy addicts too young to tie their own fucking shoes? You and I are RATS, Reno, we live in garbage and eat shit and we do that our whole miserable fucking lives. That's life in Sector 7, asshole. Get used to it."

We slum dwellers have a theory about people who live and work in dark corners of Midgar's underbelly. There are rats and then there are ravens. The 'rats' are the children of the slum, bred into poverty, illiterate, and pretty unaware that you can be any other way. They're pretty industrious in the criminal ways, sure, but they got no hope of escaping the street. The 'ravens' of the slum were born into a kinder world, they come from families with means and have formal education. They could be doctors and lawyers in some shiny office in the Upper Midgar, but they were either born crazy or fucked up bad enough that they have to work among the bottom feeders and shady characters. Ravens are criminal masterminds, they don't mix with street meat.

I am Reno, without a last name, and I am a rat. But that does not stop me from dreaming about scoring with a real raven. He is a tall, muscular, and naturally bald man a few years my senior who walks everywhere like he owns the place. He's from the Costa del Sol, so his skin is really tan, and he works for Shinra, so he's got plenty of cash. Rude is a handsome man, put together and impeccably dressed. I never saw his eyes because his shades never reveal them. His face is highly structured and when he smiles, which is rare, all of us slum rats get wet with adoration. Whores always swarm around him, but he doesn't fuck with our kind.

He is brilliant, they say, a real medical prodigy. I guess a long line of doctors breeds good genes, but Rude's problem is that he's a well-contained psychopath. A calm killing machine. He doesn't differentiate between resuscitation and strangling, which is why his services include assassination as well as physical exams.

"Reno? You lazy fucker, you can't make a living turning tricks if you're not working during peak hours. There's a shitload of clients outside."

"Shut your trap and pour me a Mako shake," I snap, "I don't intend to spend my whole fucking life on my back." The bartender sneers. He was a hooker once too, until an angry client slashed his face and put him out of business. I really hate this bar. It's called The Red Square and it is really that, a one-room shithole hangout with red light that draws in the sort of clientele you'd see in your nightmares. It is also the spot one goes to for information, which is why every once in a blue moon I see Rude there, doing whatever it is that he does on this side of the Midgar plate.

"Heard you've been watching that bald Turk, Red. If you think his dick is your ticket out of this shithole, take a good look at my face." The bartender pointed at the long red scar that ran across his eye and down his cheek like a fat red worm burrowing into his skin. "A whore can't fuck its way into upper-Midgar, I tell'ya. The suits only come down here to snoop and to kill. And classy boy ain't lookin' to score with no contaminated street meat."

"You wanna loose your good eye?" I slip out my thin retractable blade and waive it at his eye-level. "Then fucking watch your mouth." I pour the glowing poison down my throat. "I want another one."

"Not until your broke ass shows me some cash."

"Is this enough?" Rude throws a thin stack of Gil on the counter from behind me. It is spattered with some blood and the bartender recoils, too afraid even to grab the cash. I can feel Rude's presence behind me, his hand on the back of my neck, caressing me in a way that says 'sit still or you're history.'

His touch is electric and frightening. Rude sits next to me and unexpectedly removes his shades. He wears the dreaded dark blue Turk uniform, and I shudder at the feel of his fingers on my cheek. Turks are Shinra's teeth, literally, because they chew up and spit out its enemies. They are the best thugs money can buy. I suddenly feel young and defenseless, despite all my street smarts. His eyes are huge, brown, and thoughtful.

He caresses my face with his large fingers, observing me with his enormous milk chocolate irises. And then he reaches out and engulfs my lips with his. His kiss is powerful and overwhelming. He holds my waist and leans over me as he bends me backward over the sticky bar table, licking my teeth and exploring my mouth with his tongue. I embrace him, touching his smooth tan skin, and allow his bulk to dominate my smaller frame.

Turks are well-paid killers, he has his pick of classy uptown sluts. And down here in the slums every bitch gets aroused thinking about him too, so I wonder why he chooses me, a skinny, red-haired hooker with no last name. I hope he takes me somewhere and I don't even care if he pays. I've been fucking with strangers for money for years now, and for the first time I actually want someone to do me. My cock is hard and swollen inside my cheap clinging pants and my gut is spasming in anticipation.

"You wanna get out of here?" he kisses my eyelids, my eyebrows, and my hair."Wherever you'd like to go," I whisper in his ear, desperately clawing at the back of his suit, growing painfully hard in my groin, and gripping his muscular sides with my skinny legs. "I'd fuck you anywhere, anyplace."

I smell his cologne, a mixture of Costa spices and cigarettes, and my dick is painful and slightly wet. I want him, but then I feel two guns in his side holsters, and suddenly I am afraid. In the slums when something is too good to be true you're about to die. But my instincts aren't quick enough to save me. He slides off the stool and he forces me up and out of the bar with him, into the darkness and pouring rain. He roughly shoves me into an alley, and suddenly I see why he wears the shades. His eyes glow in the dark with Mako green and his calm smile scare me enough to scream.

"Shut the fuck up."

I taste the leather of his gloved hand on my mouth as he pushes me into the wall. All I see in the wet darkness is his pearly white teeth and his large eyes that glow green when light hits them. "You killed my associate, you crazy little bitch. I'd be afraid if I were you."

I resist him, but his grip is too damn strong. My eyes trail to the little Shinra logo on the pin of his tie and I clearly recall the client with a pin just like that. Young and sick in the head. I went with him, and he kept me in horrible pain and barely conscious for an hour, strangling and releasing me as he grew hard and came all over himself from hearing me chock and plead for my life. I finally twisted out of his grip and the rest was a blur. I shot the fucker with his own gun and dumped his body behind the building where rats ate away his face and fingertips before he could be identified. I remembered that prick well and it made me angry. I didn't deserve what the bastard did to me.

"Fuck you, big man! I ain't afraid of you, like I wasn't afraid of your psycho side-kick who got off on strangling me!" I hiss and spit. "It's hard enough to be spreading your legs for a living and I got no patience for assholes who come down here to mess with me. He tried to kill me, so I got him first. Report that to your boss!"

Rude examines me with his scary eyes and lets me out of his grip. He leans over me, with his hand on the wall behind my head, like he's about to take a bite out of my neck, and then he kisses me on the mouth, gently, like I always fantasized he would.

"You're real cute. Like a damn energy ball. You think being a Turk is easy," he chuckles into my ear, his voice is velvety and deep. "That's a first."

"Ever tried letting a fat old man fuck you over?" I say smugly, staring him down.

"Not literally." Rude laughs, shaking his head. "But there is a fat old man in my life that makes my job pretty miserable. President Shinra. You might've heard about him?"

"I'd love your job," I say defiantly, "cool suits, clean offices, sweet rides with tinted windows, shit, a paycheck large enough to afford cozy digs with a view? Sounds like one hell of a never-ending vacation." Rude is silent for a while as he examines me up and down. For a moment I become his patient and he quickly checks my heartbeat and pulse. He looks at my irises, to see if I was strung up on anything worse than cheap liquor. He nods in satisfaction.

"Nobody kills a Turk and gets away without paying for it," he says finally. "I was going to kill you. I still might. If you don't become a decent replacement for the man you killed, you're dead meat."

"Let's shake on it, yo," I challenge him immediately. "Compared to being a whore, being a Turk's is a piece of cake."

"You got yourself an employment contract, then." He replaces his shades with that mystical smile of his. "If you don't perform , I'll stick your ass in a cage with a panther and have her chase you around like a rat."


End file.
